Are The Bags Coming....?

We landed to gray and threatening skies in Bucharest, and the gloomy backdrop made the obviously Communist-era airport seem that much older.  While I'm sure the airport has undergone some updates since the 1989 revolution, they were not apparent.  I had immediately flashbacks to the airport in Warsaw, to which I arrived in 1993, not too long after the Communist regime was voted out of office.  

Immigration was smooth and the baggage claim area was surprisingly small, with only two belt stations.  As it was, it look almost as long for our bags to arrive as it had taken us to fly from Istanbul to Bucharest -- wheels-up to wheels-down -- so we had worries that our bags would not be joining us.  Alas, they were among the last off, so crisis averted.  Our driver had already called several times to check on us, and while his English was limited, we found him waiting for us outside, exactly where he'd described.  He was exceedingly polite and friendly, and these traits were ones we experienced almost across the board with all the people we came across during our trip.  Once at his car, he apologized for his English and showed me his cell phone, where he'd used a translation app to write that he was sorry for his appearance -- he was in jeans -- saying that he had just come from his son's soccer game, and he had to use his wife's car, rather than his regular van.  He wrote that he was ashamed of his poor dress and the smaller car.  We could have cared less, but his sincerity was unexpected and nice.

The drive to our hotel, which was located in the (remaining) historic old city, took more than 30 minutes, as there was an air show going on at the small military airfield in the city proper.  As we crossed one of the bridges into the city, there were cars and people lining the sidewalks watching helicopters make very low-altitude maneuvers and aerobatic tricks, somewhat alarmingly close to the people on the ground.  Our driver kept turning to watch, which gave me visions of an accident on our first day.  Luckily, that didn't happen.

An arrival package of information was waiting for us at the hotel, where we checked in around 2:00pm.  We had several hours ahead of our orientation meeting, so we cleaned up and went out to explore the historic old city, which is a rather large pedestrian-only zone.  Our hotel -- the Hilton Garden Inn -- sat on the edge, so we had only to walk outside, turn left, and we were in the old town, which was exceedingly easy and convenient.